Do you think they would have beliefs and knowledge?
— RogueAI
I think so. I think these are cognitive, not dependent on subjectivity. — hypericin
Being that a belief is a conscious process, a p-zombie would not have beliefs.A philosophical zombie or p-zombie is a hypothetical entity that looks and behaves exactly like a human (often stipulated to be atom-by-atom identical to a human) but is not actually conscious: they are often said to lack phenomenal consciousness. — https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/zombies
5 minutes ago you believed the earth was round, but had no conscious awareness of this belief. — hypericin
The concept of p-zombie researchers exploring the frontiers of science without having any knowledge is incoherent. — RogueAI
Something like a Boston Dynamics robot installed with ChatGPT is quite capable in principle of turning on the Large Hadron Collider, reading its data, and then writing out a natural language description of the result. A p-zombie scientist is exactly like this except that its body is made of skin and bones, not metal, and that its “software” is much more advanced than any current AI.
It has “knowledge” only in the sense that LLM’s have “knowledge”. It isn’t conscious. It is simply capable of processing input and reacting accordingly, whether that be with movement or speech. — Michael
A mental state, representational in character, taking a proposition (either true or false) as its content and involved, together with motivational factors, in the direction and control of voluntary behaviour." — Lionino
What you refer to as cognitive seems to mean neurological, which can be explained mechanistically. — Lionino
it reminds me of "The game" or "You are now breating manually" of 2000s internet. — Lionino
It has “knowledge” only in the sense that LLM’s have “knowledge”. It isn’t conscious. It is simply capable of processing input and reacting accordingly, whether that be with movement or speech. — Michael
Still seems to accommodate unconscious beliefs. — hypericin
I mean it to refer to the information processing capacity of the brain — hypericin
This stems from _why_ he's using the analogy - which is to address the conceivability of phenomenal consciousness residing in something nonphysical. — Malcolm Lett
Same with us, no? There also is "no empirical way of knowing" (yet / ever) whether any person is "conscious or faking". Which seems more reasonable, or likely, to you, Wayfarer (or anyone): (A) every human is a zombie with a(n involuntary) 'theory of mind'? or (B) every entity is a 'conscious' monad necessarily inaccessible / inexplicable to one another's 'subjectivity'? or (C) mind is a 'mystery' too intractable for science, even in principle, to explain? or (D) mind is a near-intractably complex phenomenon that science (or AGI) has yet to explain? :chin:[T]here would be no empirical way of knowing whether the entity was conscious or faking. — Wayfarer
Yes. And I find this particular variant of p-zombie to be very useful.And that's what made me realise the point of the thought-experiment. Providing that the fake was totally convincing, it could be a very well-constructed mannequin or robot that says 'I fear this' or 'that would be embarrasing', 'I feel great' - and there would be no empirical way of knowing whether the entity was conscious or faking. So I take Chalmer's point to be that this is an inherent limitation of objective or empiricist philosophy - that whether the thing in front of you is real human being or a robot is impossible to discern, because the first-person nature of consciousness is impossible to discern empirically, as per his Hard Problem paper.
To my point, I don't accept that this statement is true for any given conception of p-zombie. The form of p-zombie changes what we can do empirically. As someone with a reductive materialist viewpoint, I argue that at some point the p-zombie is sufficiently close to human physical structure that it is inconceivable that it doesn't have consciousness.and there would be no empirical way of knowing whether the entity was conscious or faking
However, if dualism is false, then I hold that anything with the same neural structures as humans (as empirically measured via today's technology) will experience phenomenal consciousness. — Malcolm Lett
I can conceive of the possibility that dualism is true — Malcolm Lett
...the absence of subjective experience in the philosophical zombie suggests that consciousness entails something more than just physical or observable properties. This leads to the conclusion that consciousness has aspects that are not fully captured by physical explanations alone, implying a need for an expanded understanding that possibly includes non-physical dimensions. — ChatGPT
I could well be mistaken or overly simplistic in my understanding, but I believe I was just paraphrasing commonly stated descriptions of p-zombies in the lead-up to that section that you responded to. For example, in The Conscious Mind, Chalmers (1996), pg 96 "someone or something physically identical to me (or to any other conscious being), but lacking conscious experiences altogether". As I understand it, there's no room in that description for any kind of macro or micro physical difference between the p-zombie and the human. And that's regardless of the level of technology used to do a comparison, or even whether such a technology is used. The two are stated as being identical a priori, independent of measurement.Odd reasoning, it seems to me. There is only one form of being that has 'the same neural structures as humans', that is, humans. If one were able to artificially re-create human beings de novo - that is, from the elements of the periodic table, no DNA or genetic technology allowed! - then yes, you would have created a being that is a subject of experience, but whether it is either possible or ethically permissible are obviously enormous questions.
I could well be mistaken or overly simplistic in my understanding, — Malcolm Lett
For example, in The Conscious Mind, Chalmers (1996), pg 96 "someone or something physically identical to me (or to any other conscious being), but lacking conscious experiences altogether". ...The two are stated as being identical a priori, independent of measurement. That form of p-zombie is the strictest kind, and its conceivability hinges on the conceivability of some form of metaphysics - ie: something outside of physics that has the conscious experience. This is th e dualism to which I am referring. — Malcolm Lett
Incidentally, I agree that a p-zombie indistinguishable from a human is hard to imagine, but then, if you had advanced enough robotic technology — Wayfarer
To be completely frank, I think you're agreeing with me. Chalmers' view is totally bonkers.The p-zombie in this example is a physical thing - quite literally, a physical object, albeit one that is indistinguishable from a human subject. So how does that constitute 'something outside of physics that has the conscious experience'? How is it 'outside of physics'?
He prefers panpsychism: the theory that everything is physical (no metaphysical stuff needed), but that there's some new fundamental physics that we can't yet measure. — Malcolm Lett
as I understand it, something is metaphysical if it has some form of existence that is independent of physics. — Malcolm Lett
This is the Cartesian thesis, that the mind exists in some other plane of existence beyond the physical. — Malcolm Lett
The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience. — David Chalmers
He prefers panpsychism: the theory that everything is physical (no metaphysical stuff needed), but that there's some new fundamental physics that we can't yet measure. — Malcolm Lett
In an elaborate way, he uses his p-zombie to conclude that panpsychism is correct. — Malcolm Lett
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